I'm glad I semi-read this article, because it alerted me to the fact I could switch my Office plan back to the old AI-free plan that costs ~30% less. Nice. (I'm a big user of several LLM products, but the AI features in Office are completely useless to me, basically just an annoyance.)
People can still buy non-subscription versions of Office if they want. MS doesn't really advertise their existence but they're happy to take your money for MS Office 2024 if you insist.
Office has always been a subscription. They just made it obvious, as opposed to selling Office 4, Office 95, Office 97 with no indication that you were expected to buy the upgrade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Office for a long history of this if you care.
Most other software the same. With a subscription you can't keep and use the old version anymore, and you can't even keep using it if you stop paying (though there is often a free tier) with a subscription. However nothing has in practice changed except that they payment cycles are more predictable.
This is not even remotely correct. Historically, Microsoft's biggest problem with Office was having to convince people to buy the new versions since the basic feature set was fairly complete. The file format upgrade in 2007 was the only real forced upgrade since you had to have it in order to read other people's files. I have a copy of Office 2010 that still works just fine and can read files produced by up-to-date Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
The same goes for many other pieces of software. People (especially home users) would buy software once and then keep using it until something justified an upgrade. Software subscriptions were historically a B2B thing and IIRC usually came with support packages to help justify the ongoing cost -- especially important in the pre-internet and early internet eras.
Realistically it is close enough to correct. Your old version would still work, but you run into problems sticking with an old version because eventually someone will send you a doc from a newer version.
What do you mean? My Office 97 cd still works, the product key still works, and Clippy is still there. It's old, but no less functional than it was in '97.
Edited the original... You can keep and use Office 97 as long as you want. However if you decide to stop paying for office365 you can no longer use it (or get the free version - I'm not sure what exactly happens)
Indeed, some professional software is now cheaper and more accessible to the individual consumer. Before Adobe went to the subscription model, I only had access through school programs and later through my newspaper's office. When Adobe inevitably released a new Photoshop version, my employer could easily swallow the price tag. It seems quaint thinking about how I drove across town to access software.
Same here! I did cancel my subscription. I hadn't used it much aside from Outlook anyway. I probably wouldn't have cared about it if there hadn't been a price increase. Its now Thunderbird and LibreOffice.
This article inspired me to check if Google has something similar for Google Workspace, which also just increased its price due to a bunch of Gemini integration I have absolutely no need for.
As it turns out, they do—but it's hidden from the "Plans and Upgrade" page, which only shows the Standard plan and above. After some digging, I finally found an inconspicuous dropdown on my plan's billing page that had an option to downgrade my plan. Upon clicking it, I was taken back to the earlier "Plans and Upgrade" page, but this time, the Starter plan was made visible on the page.
It's exactly half the price of the Standard plan, just with less storage, no Gemini, and some restrictions on other enterprise features I've never even heard of. Pretty bizarre and upsetting that they completely hide the existence of the Starter plan like that.
I'm hoping I can eventually bring my reliance on Google services down to zero, whenever I can afford the effort it takes to migrate to something better.
> I have little doubt that if Lina Khan was still heading up the US Federal Trade Commission that this is something she’d be looking into; it’s such a clear example of the abuses she used to take on. But now that a Trump crony is in that position instead, tech companies can get away with ripping off and lying to their customers, as Microsoft just did to me and millions of others.
Next paragraph:
> Microsoft got off comparatively easy in recent years, as regulators and competition authorities went after the other major tech giants with much more vigor.
Weird sentiment. I'm a fan of Lina, but what exactly would she investigate here? The article is "Microsoft raised prices to pay for AI"... and? so? How is this antitrust behavior?
Microsoft pretended it was simply a price increase but they had actually moved people to a higher product tier. The old tier still existed. This is deceptive.
Whether it's sufficiently deceptive to fall foul of the law I don't know.
We're back to 2016-2020 where the authors of nearly every single article feel like they have to take a stand against the Evil Orange Man on their blog. 3 more years of this clown show I guess.
I have so many things to complain about with Microsoft, especially the enshitification of Windows, but I think the way they handled the Microsoft 365 plan change was actually transparent. I got an email telling me the price was going to go up a month before my plan was going to renew, and I logged into my account and saw the option to downgrade back to the tier I was originally on. It's a hassle, but it's a one-time thing. Of course it's still not cool of them to opt-in people to a more expensive tier.
I do not consider auto-upgrading people to pay more for something they probably aren’t already using “transparent”. Most especially if they didn’t mention in the email that there is a way to keep the existing price.
Well I am pretty sure Classic option will go away at some point.
But paying to write documents on your laptop ? No thanks, I will use LibreOffice* instead.
* In reality I use calligra that comes with Slackware instead of LibreOffice. I really never use office applications. So calligra is good enough for me.
FWIW, I "had it with Microsoft" before Windows 95 came out.
"Generative AI is nothing but a con dressed up in big promises that become harder to believe with every passing month." - hard to read any blog post with an opening line this dismissive.
I'm glad I semi-read this article, because it alerted me to the fact I could switch my Office plan back to the old AI-free plan that costs ~30% less. Nice. (I'm a big user of several LLM products, but the AI features in Office are completely useless to me, basically just an annoyance.)
The real money-grab was turning Microsoft Office into a subscription service in the first place. SaaS is a cancer on personal computing.
People can still buy non-subscription versions of Office if they want. MS doesn't really advertise their existence but they're happy to take your money for MS Office 2024 if you insist.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-...
Office has always been a subscription. They just made it obvious, as opposed to selling Office 4, Office 95, Office 97 with no indication that you were expected to buy the upgrade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Office for a long history of this if you care.
Most other software the same. With a subscription you can't keep and use the old version anymore, and you can't even keep using it if you stop paying (though there is often a free tier) with a subscription. However nothing has in practice changed except that they payment cycles are more predictable.
This is not even remotely correct. Historically, Microsoft's biggest problem with Office was having to convince people to buy the new versions since the basic feature set was fairly complete. The file format upgrade in 2007 was the only real forced upgrade since you had to have it in order to read other people's files. I have a copy of Office 2010 that still works just fine and can read files produced by up-to-date Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
The same goes for many other pieces of software. People (especially home users) would buy software once and then keep using it until something justified an upgrade. Software subscriptions were historically a B2B thing and IIRC usually came with support packages to help justify the ongoing cost -- especially important in the pre-internet and early internet eras.
Realistically it is close enough to correct. Your old version would still work, but you run into problems sticking with an old version because eventually someone will send you a doc from a newer version.
I have an old version (I don't remember which one) of Word running on Windows 3.11 on a 486 DX2-66.
>You can't keep and use the old version anymore
What do you mean? My Office 97 cd still works, the product key still works, and Clippy is still there. It's old, but no less functional than it was in '97.
Edited the original... You can keep and use Office 97 as long as you want. However if you decide to stop paying for office365 you can no longer use it (or get the free version - I'm not sure what exactly happens)
Indeed, some professional software is now cheaper and more accessible to the individual consumer. Before Adobe went to the subscription model, I only had access through school programs and later through my newspaper's office. When Adobe inevitably released a new Photoshop version, my employer could easily swallow the price tag. It seems quaint thinking about how I drove across town to access software.
Same here! I did cancel my subscription. I hadn't used it much aside from Outlook anyway. I probably wouldn't have cared about it if there hadn't been a price increase. Its now Thunderbird and LibreOffice.
This article inspired me to check if Google has something similar for Google Workspace, which also just increased its price due to a bunch of Gemini integration I have absolutely no need for.
As it turns out, they do—but it's hidden from the "Plans and Upgrade" page, which only shows the Standard plan and above. After some digging, I finally found an inconspicuous dropdown on my plan's billing page that had an option to downgrade my plan. Upon clicking it, I was taken back to the earlier "Plans and Upgrade" page, but this time, the Starter plan was made visible on the page.
It's exactly half the price of the Standard plan, just with less storage, no Gemini, and some restrictions on other enterprise features I've never even heard of. Pretty bizarre and upsetting that they completely hide the existence of the Starter plan like that.
I'm hoping I can eventually bring my reliance on Google services down to zero, whenever I can afford the effort it takes to migrate to something better.
The old fox and scorpian tale over and over again.
Aka it's Microsoft, this is what they do.
I had it with them in 2003 and haven't looked back.[0]
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_%28computer_worm%29
https://youtu.be/_LsvdlaF5_k&t=1992
> I have little doubt that if Lina Khan was still heading up the US Federal Trade Commission that this is something she’d be looking into; it’s such a clear example of the abuses she used to take on. But now that a Trump crony is in that position instead, tech companies can get away with ripping off and lying to their customers, as Microsoft just did to me and millions of others.
Next paragraph:
> Microsoft got off comparatively easy in recent years, as regulators and competition authorities went after the other major tech giants with much more vigor.
Weird sentiment. I'm a fan of Lina, but what exactly would she investigate here? The article is "Microsoft raised prices to pay for AI"... and? so? How is this antitrust behavior?
Microsoft pretended it was simply a price increase but they had actually moved people to a higher product tier. The old tier still existed. This is deceptive.
Whether it's sufficiently deceptive to fall foul of the law I don't know.
You should read the article. It’s not about that.
We're back to 2016-2020 where the authors of nearly every single article feel like they have to take a stand against the Evil Orange Man on their blog. 3 more years of this clown show I guess.
The subscription price increased in 2024 itself, so blaming it on Trump cronies is eye-rolling.
I have so many things to complain about with Microsoft, especially the enshitification of Windows, but I think the way they handled the Microsoft 365 plan change was actually transparent. I got an email telling me the price was going to go up a month before my plan was going to renew, and I logged into my account and saw the option to downgrade back to the tier I was originally on. It's a hassle, but it's a one-time thing. Of course it's still not cool of them to opt-in people to a more expensive tier.
I do not consider auto-upgrading people to pay more for something they probably aren’t already using “transparent”. Most especially if they didn’t mention in the email that there is a way to keep the existing price.
I'm just reacting to the article, mostly. I think they framed it without mentioning the details in my comment, which your comment glosses over.
The only version of Windows these days without overt ads is Enterprise. The rest are terrible.
Well I am pretty sure Classic option will go away at some point.
But paying to write documents on your laptop ? No thanks, I will use LibreOffice* instead.
* In reality I use calligra that comes with Slackware instead of LibreOffice. I really never use office applications. So calligra is good enough for me.
FWIW, I "had it with Microsoft" before Windows 95 came out.
Microsoft?
For progress, one word: Document. For more, quit forcing on me stuff that hurts my work. One more, for a list of old problems, document and fix those.
[flagged]
"Generative AI is nothing but a con dressed up in big promises that become harder to believe with every passing month." - hard to read any blog post with an opening line this dismissive.